Page:De Vinne, Invention of Printing (1876).djvu/371

Rh heartily accept the date of any version of the legend. On this great occasion the Costerian Museum of Haarlem was enriched with a pedigree of the Thomaszoon family, an old document frequently referred to by some defenders of the legend as an incontestable evidence of its truth. The pedigree was, without doubt, a genuine relic. Its dingy vellum surface, written over in many handwritings, was surrounded by an embroidered border blackened with age. Its history could be traced through three centuries. Gerrit Thomaszoon, the aged descendant of Coster mentioned by Junius with such marked respect, was the person by or for whom this pedigree was made in or about the year 1550. This Gerrit Thomaszoon had kept an inn in the house once occupied by Coster, and it is supposed that the pedigree was one of the decorations of a wall in his house. There is a special significance in this date of 1550. This pedigree, which describes Coster as the inventor of printing, was written at least one hundred years after the discovery of the invention and the death of the inventor. It was written when Cornelis, the only eye-witness known to